Is Your Mind Like a Drunken Monkey?

November 4, 2014 1:54 PM

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Meditation: a well-used yet so often misunderstood word. Yes, it is simple: just calm the mind and be still, breathe, pay attention and be present. But it's not always so easy! The mind is notoriously resistant to being quiet, and as soon as we want to be still it seems to do everything it can to distract us. Within a few minutes thoughts are wandering, body starts to itch, ache, or want to move, things we need to do suddenly seem vitally important, and because we're so distracted we soon feel inadequate and no good at it.

The mind is described as being like a drunken monkey bitten by a scorpion and, just as a monkey leaps from branch to branch, so the mind leaps from one thing to another, constantly distracted. Then, when we come to sit still and begin to pay attention, we find all this manic activity going on and it...